Craig? I have some peeves.

Ok, so, Craigslist. What's that song, when you're good you're good, but when you're bad, you're oh so bad? That's how I feel about Craigslist. I've had some successes - I got my awesome desk chair from Craig.

photo credit to the awesome Sara

I've gotten rid of some stuff that way too, like various tv's and our old desk. But it's never without a little....weirdness.

Like the desk. Well priced, tons of inquiries. Tons of arrangements made for people to come get it. And I got stood up no less than FOUR times! People - how hard is it to just SAY you aren't coming? As a corollary - you should probably try to BE there when you've arranged for someone to come get something, and not make them sit on a farm in the middle of nowhere with your dad who doesn't know exactly what you're there for while you just don't answer your phone.

I have approximately a zillion issues with how people word their sale postings, the pictures they provide - I don't even LOOK at ads without pictures, so those people are a whole other story - and some of the insane price points people think they can get. Oh, and posting every single day for three weeks about your "majestic" table and chairs that SO aren't without a single drop in price? And not at least deleting your other 21 previous posts so that I can SEE you haven't lowered the price? Lame.

Also lame? Why do people not post dimensions? I have to ask for dimensions for virtually every. single. item I try to buy. Putting your dog in the picture for scale doesn't really help - I don't know how big your dog is. Please don't tell me something is 2 and a half feet high, and get all offended when I arrive and it's 18" tall at best and I don't want to purchase it. Or the most awesomely terrible response I got to my inquiry?

I don't have anything to measure to dimensions right now. But I did quick step measure, it is 3.5 steps to 2 steps and my foot size is 9.5.

What the heck? I mean, I do not wear a 9.5, I don't know if you are a man or a woman, I have no i-d-e-a how big that is!!

And while I'm all about contacting people if I can't make it to a pick up, or I'm running late, I do NOT consider a sale in the bag until someone has given out their address or a meeting is arranged. Just because I emailed to see if something was available? Yep, doesn't mean I'm married to it. My understanding of the unwritten Craigslist rules is that I'm under no obligation to reply to you in this instance. Sometimes I will with a, "thanks, it's not right for me." But I don't always have time, and don't feel it's necessary.  Apparently the guy who followed up several weeks later to tell me his item was stiiiiill available did not feel the same way. And he REALLY didn't feel the same way when he further emailed to yell at me for wasting his time, and that I must get off on inquiring if items are still around. I'm sorry dude, YOU are the one wasting your own time following up on casual inquiries from a month ago. But since you likely have no friends, I guess it's your time to waste.

I'm also fairly confused by what seems to be a new trend - selling already refinished furniture, or handmade crafts....on Craigslist. In my opinion, Craigslist is where you BUY the items that you subsequently refinish. I mean, if you want to sell them for a profit, maybe there should be a special section for that. Or a boutique or something. Because I can put Anthropologie knobs on something just like you did and not pay your markup. I'm on Craigslist to find a deal. Paying your markup? No longer a deal. And the crafts? Try Etsy. How many people in your local area even want knitted baby hats modeled on a scary baby doll head?

Sigh. Come on Craig. I'm having a baaaad run of luck here. Just give me one good deal and a smooth transaction on an item I can actually afford and that I know fits in my space ahead of time, and we can be friends again. Until then? Well, I'm keeping my someday-to-be-posted unused drafting table, ceiling fan, and brass light fixture for MYSELF!

Note to self

No more side jobs. I get to a certain point every time I take one on where I just really don't want to do it anymore. There are definitely things I enjoy about it - the money for sure, working on something different than I do on a daily basis (we don't do home design at my firm, which is also why moonlighting is allowed!), working out problems, getting into a groove.....but it doesn't last. I really dislike the demands on my free time. I don't like the guilt I feel when I should be working on an all too brief weeknight when all I want to do is relax. I don't like having to turn things down on the weekends because that's my only free block of time to really get into that groove. I'm learning that I don't really like dealing with clients - it's not that I've actually had any bad experiences...it's just that it's really not part of my personality. I'm fine working by myself or as part of a team, but I just don't like being the point person. I sometimes wonder if this is a skill I'll develop and learn not to dislike as I advance in my career, but at this point...I just don't.

I need to remember this feeling of having to drag myself to work on this the next time I am tempted to take something on. Or to at least pass it off to my husband, who seems to enjoy side jobs as a form of recreation. Me, well, I'd choose just about anything else.

Possibly overdoing it....

Each day has it's own little rhythm, but they're basically five workdays book ended by two lovely slices of weekend days. The weeks go by one pretty much just like the last, and that's cool, but then I got a little itch. I thought, I have to DO something. I need a task, something to keep my hands busy. So I decided, hey, I'll upholster a chair. I gathered up some research materials, but I didn't really do much. Even though I wanted to do something, inertia is a beast. So then I was approached about drawing up a house for someone, and I thought, Ok, I'm not really doing anything anyway. So I worked on that a little here and there when I had a free weekend day, and then I got cold and thought I need to knit stuff so I got a whole truck load of yarn that I needed to wind into balls pretty much immediately. In the meantime, I've still got that house project going on and the chair is LOOKING at me and the husband is using the computer anyway so YES grab some tools and start deconstructing the chair! I worked on that for a few days non-stop, and then I had to do serious work on the house project, and then I was tired so I started knitting one night and HEY I got a mixer for Christmas and yay fresh bread! But then my living room looked like crap so I thought I should cut everything out for the new pieces for the chair so that's all in carefully disarrayed piles because whoops! Project deadline! Commence three straight 12 hour days of ridiculous focus and intensity in drawing. I sent it off to the client today and I really hope they don't have many changes because I don't think I can look at it right now, especially not with the mess in my living room that has grown past the point of "I'm in the middle of this and don't want to lose my place" and now is in danger of permanently looking that way and hey wouldn't it be fun to build some furniture from knock off wood.....Um, did I mention that I work full time?

So.

I may have a little problem, wherein I like to do things all or nothing, and all at the same time, and if it ain't the deep end then I don't want anything to do with it.  However, running at this speed for the past two months has worn me down a little bit.  So new rule? Finish chair. THEN knit the pouf. THEN take a nap for crying out loud.

Yarn?

I haz some.

Hopefully, one day, it will look like this.  You know, right after about 14 other projects.  Or concurrently, because I seem to like to spread myself thin.

It has begun...

I decided to face this new year head on and dive right into a project that is way above my head. It looks pretty bad.....but hey, surgery would look a lot like murder if you stopped halfway through, right?

I'm about 85% of the way through the dis-assembly stage.  I still need to take apart the pieces on the foot of the recliner, and then I need to rip the seams out of all the skirt pieces and the seat cushion.  Most of the tutorials and books I've been referring to are for standard wingback chairs....that don't recline.  And therefore don't really come apart.  At the beginning, I did not realize how much the moving parts were going to impact my method.  I had to completely remove both the foot (as I'm calling it, no idea what it is actually called!) AND the chair back itself.  I started out trying to keep it intact, but I got far fewer owies on my hands when I took parts off rather than wedging my hands in with all the metal and raw wood edges.  I've taken roughly one zillion (actual count is more like 200, but still) photos of my progress, along with copious notes about the order in which pieces were removed, and numbered and up-arrow labeled all pieces.

Next task after dis-assembly is complete - cutting the new pieces.  That should be done in, oh, a year.